Blessed Through Your Calling

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Blessed Through Your Calling 1 Peter 3:8-12 (RSV) 8

Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind. 9

Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing. 10

For "He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile; 11

Let him turn away from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it.

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For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those that do evil.

Blessed Through Your Calling Let me call your attention to verse 9 in the referenced scripture: "...for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing." The King James Version says that we have been called "to inherit a blessing." When He saved us, God called us to inherit a blessing. There is a blessing that belongs especially to each of us. Scripture says that we have been called to inherit a blessing. There is a blessing with our name on it. If we are not careful, we will miss our blessing. Blessings do not come in generalities. We are not just generally blessed. Often we speak of blessings in general terms; we just want to be generally blessed. But God does not always, and most often does not, bless us generally. We have been called. We have been called to inherit a blessing. Blessing must be defined according to individual purpose and divine directions. Not understanding this concept will cause us to be forever frustrated trying to be blessed like somebody else. We will be frustrated trying to be successful like somebody else, thinking that we're not blessed when comparing our blessings with others. Some parents are frustrated because their child is not as successful, by their definition, as their neighbor's child, or as their best friend's child. We need to understand that the purpose for our children may not be our purpose. God may have another purpose for each of our children that's different from that of our neighbor's child.

What Is God's Purpose for You We cannot talk about blessings without talking about individual purpose and Holy Ghost guidance. The question then is, "What is God's purpose for you?" Whatever His purpose for you is, He has gifted you accordingly. Therefore, if you discover your gift, you will discover your purpose and will be blessed. The Bible says that if God has saved you, He has spiritually gifted you. We should not confuse our spiritual gifts with our talents. We had our talents when we were born, but we do not receive our spiritual gift(s) until we were born again. Some of us may have been talented athletes or talented musicians, but when we were born again, God gifted us spiritually for a purpose and a task. Therefore, if we discover our gift(s), we will discover our purpose and we will be blessed.

Missed Blessings The question arises, "What's keeping many of us from being blessed?" 1 Peter warns us to do good and not evil so we won't miss our blessing. The Lord loves righteousness and the Lord turns His face on evil. To be blessed, we must seek righteousness and avoid evil. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33 — KJV). Seek means to look for. Seek means not just to be good, but to look for good. We need to seek righteousness before we can obtain the blessing that has our name on it.

Too Evil to Be Blessed

Freely Shared This scripture tells us the number one weapon of an evil person is the tongue. The tongue has it's own world of iniquity. The tongue, which is as dangerous as lust, has its own subculture of iniquity and this subculture of iniquity loves the church. Many believers have been delivered from the sin of lust, but the world of iniquity of the tongue is living well among the saints in the church.

The Tongue: A Blessing or a Curse The question is, "Will we bless others with our tongue or will we curse others with our tongues?" If we know our tongue has not been a blessing to others, we need to fall on our face and repent before the Lord God Almighty. In the Old Testament, God had given Balaam the ability to curse or bless effectively. The enemy of God, king of the Moabite tribe, Balak, knew that Balaam had the power in his tongue to curse or bless. So Balak hired Balaam to curse the Israelites because God had made them mighty (Numbers 22 & 24). But Balaam didn't take the money. He wanted to talk to God about it. God told Balaam that these were His people and not to curse them, but bless them. Then the king of the Moabites sent others to talk to Balaam again, and he offered Balaam more money. He offered Balaam riches—the wages of unrighteousness. He offered him silver and gold. This time Balaam again said I need to check with God before I take this money, but God knew Balaam's heart and that he had the money in his eyes. God had to meet Balaam in a special way. God met him with a dumb ass, a donkey, and stopped him in his tracks before making a mistake. Balaam, still being eager to be an ambassador for the king of Moab, whipped his donkey and the donkey cried out, "Why are you whipping me? I haven't done anything. It's your problem. You're the one in love with this money." The donkey talked; the dumb ass talked to a dumb person. Sometimes we need a dummy to talk to a dummy. The donkey said, "I'm not in love with the money, you're in love with the money. Why are you whipping me?" God works in mysterious ways. Balaam sought the Lord again, and this time the Lord told him not only do we not curse them but also we want to bless the people of Israel. So Balaam gave four blessings. By the time he got to the fourth blessing, the enemy of God was irate with Balaam and said if you're not going to curse them, whatever you do just don't bless them. Our lives mirror Balaam in many ways. Many of us are in love with the wages of unrighteousness. But God is calling us today, wherever we might be in our journey, to stop and repent of our cursing tongues. We must prepare to receive the blessing with our name on it. We should never say anything about anybody unless it helps them. We should not tell about deacon so-andso who's getting a divorce. Is that helping him? Is giving me that information helping him? We should not tell that sister so-and-so's daughter is pregnant. We say, "Well, I'm telling the truth." That's not the question. We say, "I'm giving information, I'm not gossiping." If it is not helping, it is a curse. The only time we should mention another person in conversation is when it helps that person. In some cases our evil is deceptive. We approach people and say, "I want you to pray with me about brother so-and-so." Here comes the curse, now—in the form of a prayer. "He's having problems in his marriage. Let's pray for him right now." We need a donkey or something dumb or intelligent to stop us in our path and cause us to repent. If we want to be blessed, we must turn our tongues into instruments of blessing.

Give Up Retaliation God's Word says if we don't want to miss our blessing, we have to give up retaliation. Retaliation is doing evil for evil: "I'm going to talk about her because she talked about me. I'm going to talk about him because the world's been bad to me." We can't do evil for evil and expect to find favor with God. Our flesh wants to retaliate. We can't retaliate if we want to be blessed. God's Word says that we have to give up retaliation. We cannot do evil for evil and still have the blessing that has our name on it. We have been called to inherit a blessing. As long as we do evil for evil, as long as we retaliate on every evil that comes our way, we are avoiding that blessing with our name on it.

Pursue Peace Scripture says if we don't want to miss our blessing, we have to pursue peace. In other words, we must run after peace. Peace and our blessings are integrally connected. It doesn't matter how badly people treat us, we still have to run after peace. The scripture says pursue peace, not just have peace. Just go after it. No matter how people talk about us or mistreat us, we must run after peace. If we chase peace, we'll catch our blessing.

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Don't Switch Price Tags Don't miss your blessing by trying to change the price tag on the blessing. God is watching you; His eye is upon you. Some of us, before God cleansed us, would go in the store and see the price tag on one suit and try to put that tag on another suit. Some of us used to see a price tag on one dress and, because nobody was looking, we would take the price tag off that dress and put it on another dress. This dress is the one we really want, but it costs too much, so we would switch price tags. Some of us are doing that with our blessings. We're trying to take the price tag off. It costs to be blessed. There's a price tag on every blessing. If we want to be blessed, we must stop trying to change the price tag. The blessing we are called to receive based on God's purpose for us may cost more than another blessing. We should not change the price tag because we may be giving it to somebody else when blessing belongs to us. If we want to be blessed, whatever we do, we must not change the name on the gift. We used to do that under the Christmas tree. When one box looked a little bigger than the other, we would take our name off that little box and put it on the bigger box. No, that other box is yours, that's your blessing, that's your gift. It's your blessing according to your calling. Don't try to change the names. Stop comparing blessings. We can't compare blessings because our blessings are in accordance with God's purpose for our life. God has chosen us for a blessing. He has called us to inherit our blessing. We must claim our blessing.

Summary If we have experienced grace, we have been called to inherit a blessing. Blessings do not come in generalities. If we are not careful, we can miss a blessing with our name on it. Blessings must be defined according to individual purpose and divine direction. Whatever God's purpose is, He has gifted us accordingly. Therefore, when we operate in our spiritual gifts, we discover our purpose, and we will be blessed. In order to be blessed we must seek righteousness and avoid evil. Our tongues can either be an instrument of a blessing or a curse. We cannot do evil for evil and still have the blessing that God has prepared for us. If we want to be blessed, we must make our tongues an instrument of blessing. Also, if we don't want to miss the blessing of our calling, we must pursue peace. If we chase peace, we will catch our blessings. In addition, there is a price tag on every blessing. We cannot change the price tag on our blessing because it costs too much. God has called us to receive the blessing with our name on it. If we switch price tags, we might give away the blessing we have been called to receive.